1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus capable of receiving electronic mail data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in addition to speech communication performed by facsimile communication or telephone communication through a telephone line, processing such as electronic mail (hereinafter "e-mail") processing or information searching through the Internet is generally used. With respect to e-mail, not only character information but also image data, audio data, or computer data having various forms can be exchanged. In addition, it can be determined by software registered in a personal computer (hereinafter a "PC") whether a communication destination is a facsimile apparatus or a PC which can transmit/receive e-mail. If the communication destination is a facsimile apparatus, the facsimile apparatus converts character-code data into facsimile image data to perform facsimile communication. If the communication destination is a PC, an e-mail system which can transmit character-code data in the form of e-mail has also been developed. Furthermore, an apparatus which can receive an e-mail and can convert the data of the received e-mail into facsimile image data to perform facsimile communication has also been developed. As these apparatuses, apparatuses which are shared by a plurality of users and transmit received e-mail to destination addresses set in the apparatuses are generally used.
However, the above system or apparatus is mainly for personal use. In the system or apparatus, a document formed by a PC is designated to be transmitted by a person, and basically one-to-one communication is performed.
Therefore, when information transmission is performed through a plurality of PCs, the information transmission must be manually performed. For this reason, rapid information transmission cannot be easily performed. For example, the system will be described below with reference to a certain company. In order to reduce communication cost, the following system is supposed. That is, person A who works at the head office transmits information as e-mail from a PC in the head office (Tokyo) to a PC of person B in the Fukuoka branch, and person B causes the information to be converted into facsimile image data and sent from the PC in the Fukuoka branch through a telephone line to distribute the facsimile image data to facsimiles A and B in a plurality of branch offices (in Fukuoka city).
In this case, in a conventional e-mail system also capable of performing facsimile communication, after an e-mail received from the head office is checked by a person on the branch side, the person must designate the address of a branch office to perform multi-address transmission. More specifically, information transmission between base points must be manually performed.
For this reason, to perform rapid communication, for person A to directly perform facsimile multi-address transmission from a PC of the head office to the facsimile apparatuses A and B of the branch offices in Fukuoka city without bothering person B, a long-distance call fee must be paid each time facsimile transmission is performed to each branch office.
Although a conventional apparatus which receives e-mail and converts the e-mail into facsimile image data to perform facsimile transmission is shared by a plurality of users, the apparatus cannot process the images received by respective users with functions which are set in the apparatus in advance. More specifically, although the apparatus is shared by a plurality of users, the apparatus is not very convenient for a writing user. For example, the apparatus cannot be used in such a manner that e-mail addressed to person A and received by person A is transmitted to a facsimile apparatus installed at another location, or that person B automatically gets a printout of e-mail addressed to person B.